Cathedral hosts ‘Food Waste Feast’ to launch global campaign

An international charity has launched a global campaign against food waste by holding a ‘Food Waste Feast’ at Bradford Cathedral.

Tearfund Action, a Christian charity, is encouraging churches and individuals to be part of a new approach to the way food is consumed and thrown away.

The Feast was one of two major launch events – the other in Edinburgh – and the food was provided by the Saltaire Canteen in Shipley which runs a ‘pay as you feel’ café using ‘intercepted’ food from supermarkets which otherwise would have gone to waste.

On the menu at Bradford Cathedral was a three course meal: a starter of lettuce, pea and cucumber soup followed by a main course a chick pea and sweet potato curry with rice and to follow a pudding of pear and ginger cake.

Speaking at the event was Ruth Valerio, Tearfund's Advocacy and Influencing Director, who said that “The idea of the campaign is to focus on the problem of food waste – globally probably around a third of food produced never gets eaten and is wasted. It’s shocking because huge amounts of resources go into producing that food, contributing to climate change.”

Tearfund’s campaign against food waste is part of its global 'Renew Our World' campaign and the charity says that food waste is an issue which should be of concern to all Christians.

Ruth added. “We want to encourage a personal response from people taking steps to reduce food waste in their own lives – and also we are calling on supermarkets as well. There are global goals to halve foodwaste by 2030 and supermarkets are signing up to that. We have already had responses from Tesco, Marks and Spencer and Waitrose as a result of the campaign.”

Also speaking at the event was Duncan Milwain (pictured right) who founded the Saltaire Canteen in 2014 which provided the food for the feast. The Canteen is part of the Real Junk Food Project and has twin aims – to challenge the issue of food waste and confront the issue of food poverty in Shipley.

Duncan told the Bradford Cathedral diners, “The majority of food labelling is purely advisory and have nothing to do with the quality of the food itself. What people need to do is go back to do what a lot of our grandparents would have done and look and smell the food.”